Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless communications systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems for improved communications in wireless devices using WiFi communications links.
Background
Wireless communications technology affords users great flexibility in communications, including audio communications, email, video, and other data transfer. While cellular networks are deployed widely for convenient voice communications, use of data-intensive wireless communications has increased dramatically in recent years, in part due to the deployment of technology (such as WiFi) based on the 802.11 family of standards. The latter technology is particularly suited for users of data terminals such as portable computers who enjoy “portable” access to data networks through access points (APs), whether at home, in an office, hotel, school, or coffee shop.
Because 802.11 (the term “WiFi” is used interchangeably with “802.11” herein to indicate a wireless communications based on an 802.11 standard) technology has been developed to facilitate data communications, such as email, web access, and the like, a focus has been on assuring data transmission, while less attention has been paid to applications that involve real-time communications, such as audio and video transmission. Accordingly, 802.11-based devices have not been widely deployed as audio or video devices.
A first problem associated with the use of 802.11 for real-time applications is the use of a frame check sequence (FCS) included in a payload packet for determining whether to send an acknowledgment (ACK) for a particular transmitted payload packet. However, in real-time voice and streaming video applications, it is not possible to use an ACK mechanism.
Because every data packet is subject to an ACK mechanism in transmissions using the 802.11 standard, a large overhead is added to data transmissions. While desirable to ensure the reliability of data transmissions, this creates an often unnecessary transmission bottleneck for real-time applications. For example, in wireless transmission of data from a WiFi terminal to an access point (AP), if a single error is detected in the Media Access Control (MAC) header or payload of an 802.11 packet transmission, the packet is rejected. Rejection based on single errors may desirable in the case of data transmitted using internet protocol (IP), where the single error could be located in an IP address field, and could cause the packet to be improperly directed to the wrong IP address by the AP. However, single errors located in voice packets, for example, are often easily correctible or have negligible influence on the integrity of the communications. Thus, voice message transmission using WiFi technology often entails frequent retries initiated because of error detection, or loss of audio, resulting in inferior audio quality.
Additionally, 802.11 wireless terminals are susceptible to interference from other nearby RF devices. Because transmission occurs at a fixed frequency, frequency diversity cannot be deployed to avoid RF interference with another device operating at about the same frequency. Although a sequence of retries of transmission of an audio packet can be attempted to avoid interference using time diversity, the retries can have adverse consequences. For example, when two handset devices operating in close proximity each employ a series of retries to avoid external interference, the total frame time may exceed 10 ms and lead to unstable communications.
Accordingly, it will be recognized that a need exists to improve 802.11 communications for real-time applications.